Aussie sweetens Fish Creek’s (tea)pot by sponsoring public wi-fi

At 11 am today, Fish Creek tea enthusiasts will be raising their pinkies to Aussie Broadband at a tea party to celebrate the ISP sponsoring public wi-fi for the township.

The service will extend from Fish Creek CFA Station right through to the Fish Creek Hotel.

The township, a tourist destination in Gippsland, Victoria, is home to the annual Tea Cosy Festival which attracts 5,000 people over two days.

South Gippsland Shire Council also contributed $1,000 towards the cost of transmission equipment.

“With Gippsland being the regional birthplace of Aussie Broadband, we jumped at the chance to bring connectivity to both the community and visitors of the beautiful Fish Creek,” said Aussie Broadband community impact manager Caroline Kennon.

The committee of Fish Creek’s famous festival said they reached out to Aussie after becoming frustrated by a lack of wi-fi access for its hosts, participants and attendees.

“The idea came to us when the livestream for our 2020 Tea Cosy Festival went down, so we decided to approach some telcos to see if we could bring public wi-fi to Fishy,” said Tea Cosy Festival president Marge Arnup.

“We’re in love with Aussie Broadband, the Morwell-based internet service provider, which agreed to sponsor the data.”

Kennon added that the move will help support tourism and small business in regional Victoria.

“Regional towns have never needed our support more than now, plus – the tea cosy ladies were very convincing!” she said.

“Good connectivity is an expectation wherever people go. The community activities will benefit from public wi-fi, and we’ll be able to live stream all sorts of events from Fish Creek Town Hall – including the Tea Cosy Festival” said Arnup.

“We wanted to celebrate the new wi-fi service – and we thought it would be fitting to host a tea party on International Tea Day (May 21)."

The tea party is taking place at the Little Oberon Cafe today at 11am.

The public wi-fi can be accessed via code provided by local businesses to encourage patronage.

“Fish Creek is a delightful place – even the corellas think so, and they loved sitting on the aerials of the wi-fi transmitters pushing them out of position. Aussie Broadband was even able to assist with this problem,” said Arnup.